Samantha Stetzer/Winonan

The community of Winona is speaking out about sex—and sexual assault—by dancing.

SEED Performance Art will present their latest production, “Blank Page,” on Thursday, March 5. Through art and dance, “Blank Page” aims to celebrate the beauty of sex and showcase the pain and trauma sexual assault can leave on others.

Pulling real peoples’ stories from the Winona community is what makes SEED so special to founder and artistic director Claire Richards.

“The concept behind SEED is to create art for and by Winona,” Richards said. “I’m interested in taking stories from our community and using artistic devices as a vehicle to tell those stories.”

For some time now, Richards has been working on what she calls the Experiment Series, which harvests stories from the community and turns them into art. This performance is the fifth in the series.

“The general theme is: what do you want to talk about, Winona? What’s important to you?” Richards said. “I generally believe that our stories are what we should be talking about and how we are going to connect with each other. Bringing in plays that someone wrote in New York is just not as effective in my opinion as taking actual stories from the community.”

This time, the stories are all about sex.

SEED is looking to display it all: from the passion and awkwardness that can come with consensual sex to the hurt and agony that can come with sexual violence.

Richards had the responsibility to collect all the stories for this piece, partnering with the Women’s Resource Center and the women’s and gender studies department at Winona State University.

“They were really critical in getting me in contact with some people,” Richards said. “Mostly this was word-of-mouth.”

After sending out an open invitation to the community to share, more stories started pouring in. Richards was emailed stories or sometimes basic statements stating, “I was raped.” Sometimes she was emailed by friends of people who had been affected by sexual violence who gave the story secondhand.

“Out of all the stories I was given, the five I have chosen on sexual violence I really feel portray a wide range of experiences,” Richards said. “As far as the consensual sex, contributors were just kind of forthcoming with those. It was kind of like, ‘oh, okay!’”

Students and other actors performing in “Blank Page,” such as Annika Gunderson, are doing it for a variety of reasons.

“One of them is especially because I care about bringing to light and conversation and feeling on the importance of societal realities,” Gunderson said.

For performer Pedro Lander, the answer was simple: “Because we need to talk about this.”

But perhaps the most important reason for doing this performance was said by Richards.

“I guess my hope from the beginning was just to elicit conversation and encourage conversation,” Richards said.

“While we want to entertain, there are other purposes for art, and engaging in topics that is otherwise uncomfortable to talk about is important. My hope is that whether or not people like it, they at least continue to have conversations about the subject matter.”

Richards said it was important for people to remember the people they feature within these stories are not victims. They are survivors.

“What people can expect is a different narrative. We have kind of gotten used to looking at sexual violence in a way that is ‘how do I avoid being a victim,’” Richards said. “And in this, we say, why would you ever want to victimize someone? Sex is beautiful, and some of these stories are very sweet and endearing or funny and awkward, but you know when there are so many positive experiences to feel from sexual relationships. Why would you choose such a traumatic and terrible one?”

Richards put out a word of caution to survivors of sexual violence who are planning on attending the show. There will be advocates on site as well as contact information for counseling on and off campus.